“For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

“Putting” someone out of the church fellowship is not an easy thing to do. The pain and disappointment of it are enough, but consider also the gravity of it. Next to the purity of the gospel (see Gal. 1:8-9), Paul lays out his most weighty teaching here. Sin breaks the unity! His words must be acted upon; theology has ramifications. There is truth behind the words, and therefore action must take place—and that of the most difficult sort!

We are so used to being warned not to be judgmental (ergo, take the log out of your own eye before you remove the speck from your brother’s eye), that we fail to realize Scripture does make provision for correct judgment as opposed to wrong judgmentalism. The church must make the judgment and must act. Though this cuts across our contemporary popular culture’s “What would Jesus do?” mentality, Paul was inspired by the same Holy Spirit as was Jesus, and Paul challenged the Corinthians to “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:11). Thus we conclude that Jesus would have agreed with Paul’s teaching here. Not because Jesus came to condemn the world or to condemn Christians who fall back into the world’s way (and beyond), but because Jesus (and Paul) actually love the believers so much they won’t stand by and watch the self-destructive behavior, either of the individual sinner or the church that condones the sin!

Thus, the goal of the excommunication is “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” And this by means of turning the individual over to Satan. What does that mean? Commentators debate this, but we take this to mean that the church is to withdraw its fellowship from the person. The assumption here is that Christian fellowship has a protective aspect, in the same way that a herd of antelope can stand stronger against a lion than a lone animal. Satan is the lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). Withdrawing fellowship is like the shock treatment, so that the person will bear the full weight of his or her sin and its consequences. All with the goal of restoration. Paul expands on this and returns to it in his second letter to them.

Lord, also keep before me the horror of sin so that I would never be without the fellowship of my brothers and sisters in Christ.